Dear Burton,—Go ahead! Vogel and Macguire dead—murdered. Write often to Yours truly, N. S.
And thirdly came the inevitable official wig.
Convinced, by sundry conversations with Arabs and others at Suez and Aden, during my last overland journey to India, and by the details supplied to me by a naval officer who was thoroughly conversant with the Red Sea, that, in consequence of the weakness and insufficiency of the squadron then employed, slavery still flourished, and that the numerous British subjects and protegés were inadequately protected, I had dared, after arrival at Zanzibar, privately to address on the 15th of December, 1856, a letter upon the subject to the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. It contained an “Account of Political Affairs in the Red Sea,”—to quote the words of the paper, and expressed a hope that it might be “deemed worthy to be transmitted to the Court of Directors, or to the Foreign Office.”[16] The only acknowledgment which I received, was the edifying information that the Secretary to Government, Bombay, was directed by the Right Honourable the Governor in Council, Bombay, to state that my “want of discretion and due regard for the authorities to whom I am subordinate, has been regarded with displeasure by the Government.”
[16] The whole correspondence, with its reply and counter-reply, are printed in [Appendix].
This was hard. I have perhaps been Quixotic enough to attempt a suggestion that, though the Mediterranean is fast becoming a French lake, by timely measures the Red Sea may be prevented from being converted into a Franco-Russo-Austrian lake. But an Englishman in these days must be proud, very proud, of his nation, and withal somewhat regretful that he was not born of some mighty mother of men—such as Russia and America—who has not become old and careless enough to leave her bairns unprotected, or cold and crusty enough to reward a little word of wisdom from her babes and sucklings with a scolding or a buffet.
The sore, however, had its salve. The official wig was dated the 23rd of July, 1857. Posts are slow in Africa. When received on the 5th of December, 1858, it was accompanied by a copy of a Bombay Newspaper, which reported that on the 30th of June, 1858, “a massacre of nearly all the Christians took place at Juddah, on the Red Sea,” and that “it was apprehended that the news from Juddah might excite the Arab population of Suez to the commission of similar outrages.”
At Ugogi, which, it will be remembered, is considered the half-way station between Unyanyembe and the coast, the sons of Ramji and the porters detained us for a day, declaring that there was a famine upon the Mukondokwa road which we had previously traversed. At the same time they warned us that we should find the great chief, who has given a name to the Kiringawana route, an accomplished extortioner, and one likely to insist upon our calling upon him in person. Having given their ultimatum, they would not recede from it: for us, therefore, nothing remained but to make a virtue of necessity. We loaded on the 7th of December, and commenced the passage of the Usagara mountains by the Kiringawana line.
I must indent upon the patience of the reader by a somewhat detailed description of this southern route, which is separated from the northern by a maximum interval of forty-three miles. The former being the more ancient, contains some settlements like Maroro and Kisanga, not unknown by report to European geographers. It is preferred by down-caravans, who have no store of cloth to be demanded by the rapacious chiefs: the up-country travellers, who have asses, must frequent the Mukondokwa, on account of the severity of the passes on the Kiringawana.
The Kiringawana numbers nineteen short stages, which may be accomplished without hardship in twelve days, at the rate of about five hours per diem. Provisions are procurable in almost every part, except when the Warori are “out;” and water is plentiful, if not good. Travel is rendered pleasant by long stretches of forest land without bush or fetid grass. The principal annoyances are the thievish propensities of the natives and the extortionate demands of the chief. A minor plague is that of mosquitoes, that haunt the rushy banks of the hill rivulets, some of which are crossed nine or ten times in the same day; moreover, the steep and slippery ascents and descents of black earth and mud, or rough blocks of stone, make the porters unwilling to work.
Breaking ground at 6 A.M. on the 7th December, we marched to Murundusi, the frontier of Usagara and Uhehe. The path lay over a rolling thorny jungle with dottings of calabash at the foot of the Rubeho mountains, and lumpy outliers falling on the right of the road. After three hours’ march, the sound of the horses announced the vicinity of a village, and the country opening out, displayed a scene of wonderful fertility, the effect of subterraneous percolations from the highlands. Nowhere are the tamarind, the sycamore, and the calabash, seen in such perfection; of unusual size also are the perfumed myombo and the mkora, the myongo, the ndabi, the chamvya, with its edible yellowish-red berries, and a large sweet-smelling acacia. Amidst these piles of verdure, troops of parroquets, doves, jays, and bright fly-catchers, find a home, and frequent flocks and herds, a resting-place beneath the cool shade. The earth is still sprinkled with “black-jacks,” the remains of trees which have come to an untimely end. In the fields near the numerous villages rise little sheds to shelter the guardians of the crops, and cattle wander over the commons or unreclaimed lands. Water, which is here pure and good, lies in pits from fifteen to twenty feet deep, staged over with tree trunks, and the people draw it in large shallow buckets, made of gourds sewn together and strengthened with sticks. Towards the evening, a cold east-wind brought up with it a storm of thunder and rain, which was pronounced by the experts to be the opening of the rainy monsoon in Usagara.